The Coming of the Toads

A Notebook – Since 2007

Category: Poetry

  • Pretentious

    All culture is pretentious, humans pretending to be something other than what they are, animals driven by instinct to live in groups, procreate, protect and edify their young and one another, and write poems about the experience.

    Poetry is the most important aspect of culture. Through poems the great pretenders pass on the psyche of the tribe – the human social group. The tribe is always in motion, and its poetry moves with it, leaving fossils – preserved impressions. Poetry animates the culture’s pretentions by illustrating conflicts among tribal members and the tensions created by individual consciousness and the collective consciousness of the tribe.

    Poetry then is the most pretentious of human acts, the most basic of masks. The poet is naked save the mask. Imagine sitting at home writing a poem while your father spends the day working in a coal mine. That is what D. H. Lawrence did. And in the film “Il Postino” (1994), Pablo Neruda is seen sublimating his desire for culture with a poetic tribute to a miner:

    When I was a senator of the republic I went to visit the pampas, a region where it only rains once every fifty years, where life is unimaginably hard. I wanted to meet the people who had voted for me. One day at Lota there was a man who had come up from a coal mine. He was a mask of coal dust and sweat, his face contorted by terrible hardship, his eyes red from the dust. He stretched out his calloused hand and said: “Wherever you go, speak of this torment. Speak of your brother who lives underground in hell.” I felt I had to write something to help man in his struggle, to write the poetry of the mistreated. That’s how “Canto General” came about. Now my comrades tell me they have managed to get it published secretly in Chile and it’s selling like hot cakes. That makes me very happy.

    from the film “Il Postino” (1994)

    Much poetry does not fossilize. It’s not pretentious enough. The poet is a vagabond who strays from the tribe, or is exiled from the tribe for breaking cultural rules. Yet the poet is indispensable to the spirit of the human social group, even as that group ostracises and diminishes the poet through sarcasm and accusations.

    Brazilian poet and diplomat Vinicius de Moraes wrote a poem titled “The Worker in Construction.” This poem reminds me of my father, a midcentury new construction journeyman plumber. And I am reminded not only of my father, but of my own poetic masks and other pretentions.

  • Size Matters

    Nothing moves unless moved
    yet every mote of dust
    scintilla of whispered light
    black crow in pine snow
    still falling all falling.

    For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law, till all things be accomplished.

    Matthew 5:18 KJV

    All things all thoughts
    big and small
    full and empty
    macro and micro
    one and all
    universal and local
    sacred and profane
    church and tavern
    zero and infinity
    one and none
    colossal and small
    corporeal and paltry
    carnal and spiritual
    tittle-tattle and –

    and so on and so on

    For that which won’t be
    seen or measured
    is big
    but anything you can take
    a ruler to
    is small.

    If all you can
    do is compare
    one thing
    to another
    you are missing
    both
    size and matter
    what is
    and what is not.

    The biggest is yet
    to be seen
    the smallest
    to be measured:

    For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him.

    Colossians 1:16 KJV

  • Zest

    Writing poems, you want to focus
    on what to leave out; for example,
    leave out phrases like for example,
    one of the academics on a jaunt.

    The leaves fall; for example,
    consider the maple.

    The maple tree green
    red-orange
    suddenly bare.

    Another academic wishing
    he was a real poet
    and not just another drunk
    in a bar after his night class.

    Leave out articles, too (the, a, an).
    And add detail with specificity.

    The maple tree lime green in
    spring turns to fall and rust.

    Use a dictionary to make sure
    you’ve got the best verb
    for the occasion:
    turns might become (now or later)
    lathe, which suggests circular motion:

    Lime green leaves
    limbs on lathe
    leaves shaved
    disposition zest.

    Also important to think
    about when to leave
    the poem
    alone
    go home.

    But new ideas will arrive.
    The place gets crowded,
    maybe noisy:

    The poet bartender
    adds a piece of zest
    to drinks she prepares,
    which twists what
    is said, lips pucker
    distastefully sour –
    better just have one more
    and then get on home.

    At the Spinning Lathe Bar
    on each stool sits
    a ball of yarn
    she looms back and forth
    warp and weft
    she sheds, picks, and beats
    takes up and lets off
    replenishing drinks
    replacing fresh pints.

    Midnight and she wants
    to go pee and go home
    leaves cover the way
    streetlights smolder
    black branches wet
    she approaches the stairs
    of the Metro and falls
    amidst the rusted leaves
    still wearing her bar
    stained apron.

    She undresses in front
    of the backlit window
    her breasts are orange
    tipped her yellow hair
    in the streetlamp light
    flooding her bedroom.

    She climbs into bed
    thinking Spring is
    a seemingly happy
    drunk Fall often sobers.

  • Flowers in the Lunchroom

    Ashtrays
    in the church
    vestibule.

    Pint in purse waiting
    in line at the Forum
    for the Jimi concert.

    Empty condom package
    in the glovebox of the gas
    station loaner car.

    Used toilet sitting
    in yard by the gate
    under the carob tree.

    “Modifiers brighten
    your speech” classroom
    bulletin board poster.

    Dirty cloth diapers
    piled high
    on the baby grand.

    Oakum and bars of lead
    cast iron pot and melting
    furnace in back of garage.

    Jack Kerouac
    for kids
    book of haiku.

    At Berfrois
    Literature, Ideas,
    Tea leaves soon.

    Coffee in the kitchen
    trash cans on the street
    sun chasing moon.

    Bags of beer cans
    to be recycled
    again and again.

    So much depends
    upon typography
    and whiteout ribbon.

    Jack climbed
    as high as he could
    then came down.

  • Industrial

    In well worn industrial area
    east across polluted river
    from swept clean downtown
    weeds grow thru cement
    cracks asphalt vacant lot
    near railroad tracks.

    At night sluggish possums
    racoon families single file
    walk down to dark river
    using alleys streets docks.

    No skyscrapers offer moon
    shade possums backlit
    racoons shadow one
    another past metal works
    pipe fitting supply wood
    and metal fabrication
    produce row truck farm
    stalls construction hard
    ware welding taverns
    cafe guitar & drums
    body & fender shop
    storage facility social
    services wholesale
    warehousing but nary
    inside space or place
    for homeless asleep
    in streets possums
    and racoons slip by
    sleeping bags tents
    nose through trash
    heaps past tied tarps
    bent shopping carts
    broken bicycles
    war zone skoolies
    wrecked recreational
    vehicles rusting
    freight and delivery
    loading docks tile
    reclamation screw
    machine tool shops
    elaborate food carts.

    At river racoons play
    opossums bluff
    and clean and groom
    eating rat remains rich
    cultural throwaways.

  • Sunday Morning (VI, VII, VIII)

    VI
    In heaven in silence sit
    vast statues of stone
    on earth there is no quiet
    stone clouds break open
    what does the thunder say?
    Don’t sit under the apple tree
    fall is the mother of beauty
    with anyone else but she.
    She doesn’t like her picture
    taken nor to be in a poem
    does not care she is beauty
    but takes time with her hair
    avoids rules not her own.
    Heaven falls from the sky
    no heaven no earth below.

    VII
    Words are not a product
    of heaven but of earth.
    Sunday morning returns
    with a cup of French Roast
    under a grapevine wreath
    looped herbs and flowers.
    The coffee smells of earth
    the first gentle rain stirs
    petrichor into the air
    the dry grass two crows
    the cat on the dirt path.
    In heaven no senses no
    tenses no need no rain
    no sun no mud no crud.
    All sense is earthbound.

    VIII
    Sunday morning slows
    autumn leaves falling
    where she lives and walks
    in fine form and talks
    of the lovely noisy
    nights and dirty days
    of clean kitchens
    and open stays
    all means understood
    and confused all reason
    clear and absurd
    peaceful and happy
    stones that turn
    to stories and poems.
    How many choices in one
    heaven on one earth?

  • Sunday Morning (IV, V)

    IV
    She is content with the calico cat
    poosha the boy pilot who crashed
    his plane in takeoff suckled home
    the Stones on the transistor mother
    smothered with a cover of beauty.
    For content she talks about crows
    the two in the street eating squish
    squirrel but the murder on leaves
    the warm asphalt melting summer
    sun heat where does heaven hide
    and why at night come monsters
    from paradise looking for a name.
    She will not join a community
    whose purpose is to persecute
    another heaven a different earth.

    V
    Satisfied she collects the stories
    of the stones beauty calcified
    in underground electromagnetic
    waves on a static spirit oldie
    station where sleeping birds
    again awake to the murder
    of the sun or return not
    and even the earth’s rot
    will not endure and old
    trips up the coast memorized
    in slide shows by campfires
    that death may be related
    to beauty the birth of moods
    passion splurge now dead
    urges flown to beauty’s abode.

  • Sunday Morning (III, II, I)

    III
    Oh my Zeus a girl Suze by Jove!
    No god got involved the parents
    the ruin of beauty and paradise
    a coffee shop she a cupbearer
    waitress to the young men new
    to the surfboard of wet thought.
    The waves roil with oily sludge
    the kids play run from the blob
    of the reclamation plant lazy
    jets from lax prodding probing
    the puffy foggy overcast clouds.
    Bucketed fish guts and heads
    on the pier odors the paradise
    she comes to know and to love
    evening gold and morning blue.

    II
    Why should she give it up to him?
    What is love if he can come only
    in noisy fantasy and nightmare?
    Her dolphins play in their waves
    charismatic and whole while he
    came to end all frolic and family
    for some abstract community
    of musty prayer and the comfort
    of wet sackcloth and cold ashes.
    He who lived within herself
    washed up on a desert beach
    her desserts shells for a shelf
    her soul he saved in a bottle
    labeled I am not to drink in
    letters from a foreign field.

    I
    Malaises of the nightgown and wait
    for the coffee in the well worn bed
    and the matted habit of a real cat
    up in her window seat dome room
    coalesce to repeat the profane
    reminder of ritual dismission.
    She dreams not and moves awake
    with the eye of the storm encircled
    by each newfangled catastrophe
    as wealth darkens among Malibu
    lights across Santa Monica Bay.
    Against a rude screen true bugs
    intrude like the kitchen roaches
    scattering from the sudden light.
    The day is like El Porto happy
    with friends and popular songs
    until the coming of the cat poop
    cup up the stairs all the way
    from the sway of bread and beer.

  • Sunday Morning (II, I)

    II
    Why should she give it up to him?
    What is love if he can come only
    in noisy fantasy and nightmare?
    Her dolphins play in their waves
    charismatic and whole while he
    came to end all frolic and family
    for some abstract community
    of musty prayer and the comfort
    of wet sackcloth and cold ashes.
    He who lived within herself
    washed up on a desert beach
    her desserts shells for a shelf
    her soul he saved in a bottle
    labeled I am not to drink in
    letters from a foreign field.

    I
    Malaises of the nightgown and wait
    for the coffee in the well worn bed
    and the matted habit of a real cat
    up in her window seat dome room
    coalesce to repeat the profane
    reminder of ritual dismission.
    She dreams not and moves awake
    with the eye of the storm encircled
    by each newfangled catastrophe
    as wealth darkens among Malibu
    lights across Santa Monica Bay.
    Against a rude screen true bugs
    intrude like the kitchen roaches
    scattering from the sudden light.
    The day is like El Porto happy
    with friends and popular songs
    until the coming of the cat poop
    cup up the stairs all the way
    from the sway of bread and beer.

  • Sunday Morning (I)

    Malaises of the nightgown and wait
    for the coffee in the well worn bed
    and the matted habit of a real cat
    up in her window seat dome room
    coalesce to repeat the profane
    reminder of ritual dismission.
    She dreams not and moves awake
    with the eye of the storm encircled
    by each newfangled catastrophe
    as wealth darkens among Malibu
    lights across Santa Monica Bay.
    Against a rude screen true bugs
    intrude like the kitchen roaches
    scattering from the sudden light.
    The day is like El Porto happy
    with friends and popular songs
    until the coming of the cat poop
    cup up the stairs all the way
    from the sway of bread and beer.

  • Good Morning, Midnight

    Midnight likes to hang out all night long
    with a puss in boots on every block flight
    finally comes home climbs the fire escape
    out back: good morning, Midnight.

    There’s a noisy argument over in Flat 3
    Midnight’s up reading “The Life and
    Adventures of a Cat” (1760) about some
    tomfool caterwauling tom-tom tomcat.

    Now in the Cat, there
    appears the utmoſt auſterity, with
    the greateſt levity. ‘ A rake and a
    ſenator are moſt wonderfully com
    pounded. Who can analize theſe
    differing ingredients, fo demure
    a puritan on ſudden,
    verted into the moſt abfolute de
    bauche ? One time ſitting for four
    or five hours in the attitude of ſo
    lemnity, and then on a ſudden break
    out into the moſt diffolute feſtivity .
    Theſe qualities, ſo diffonant, ſo ve
    ry oppoſite to each other, muſt in
    dicate ſomething ſuperior in the
    animal, whoſe hiſtory wewe are at
    preſent writing, and we think we
    have proved this ſuperiority of the Cat.

    THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF A CAT.
    LONDON: Printed for WILLOUGHBY MYNORS,
    in Middle- Row, Holborn. M DCC LX.

    Just so, we find ourself at odds
    with our other selves at times as
    docile as the doe in the meadow
    the morning dews and sunup

    rough-hews the tousled covers
    the well worn silver curls one
    dare not come near at this late
    hour the abode dark and quiet.

    Then again after a rest resumes
    the sounds that do attract
    the rooster in the cat to come
    closer claws retracted mewing.

    Thus we speak of night and day
    and the contraries of our natures
    the desire to lose ourselves we
    so deliciously have cultivated.